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September 05, 2008
The Beast Awakes.
It’s early this year, growling in the basement, angry and scratchy and smelly.
One of the advantages of having a studio in a working woollen mill, as I have mentioned before in this collection of thoughts, is that when the weather gets inclement they kindly pump high pressure steam around the place in big steel pipes.
During the summer the great steam beast sleeps fitfully, keeping just enough of the puff to work the cloth. But when it starts to get cold the furnaces roar and the water boils, and today, as the Earl said when spotting that his son had been at the drinks cabinet again, there’s a nip in the air.
So the beast stirs, the pipes begin to grumble and gurgle against a thin background hiss. Then, as the heat stretches its warm grasp along the cold steel, the pipes start to expand. The mill covers about four acres, which is a lot of pipes, and, remembering the way prisoners talk about their escape plans late at night, sound travels a long way through pipes.
KeeeeerRACK! BANG BANG BANG BANG fffffffshhhhiissssss crick crick CRACK tickticktickticktick BANG tick whiiiiiirrrshhhhhhhhCRACK! Rrrrrrrrrr BANG BANG tick tick click tick tick click. Never a dull moment with steam heating.
Not all the steam makes it to the pipes however.
Posted by john at September 5, 2008 10:38 AM
Comments
And a good thing too - it's absolutely freezing here in Leeds, as well as being mostly underwater. I think the noises the pipes make are generally of a Comforting Nature.
Posted by: Daphne at September 5, 2008 08:46 PM